A less government conservative Republican from Livingston County, MI
Opinions on this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Livingston County Republican Party.
Chairman of LCRP since January 2013

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

GOP wins. Union leadership lost a ton of money

After this election cycle, I'm spiking the football Gronk style, and I'm not even a New England Patriots fan.

It wasn't perfect. I wish Terri Lynn Land, Dennis Brewer, Judge James Robert Redford, and Jeff Sakwa (and rest of education boards) all won, but the results were overall good.

Mark Schauer can go back to getting pepper sprayed at Right to Work Protests.

Shari Pollesch's slime campaign against Joe Hune and his family got the results that were warranted. 80K was wasted and it wasn't all that much closer than Chuck Fellows campaign in the 2010 wave year. That's worth the spiked football alone.

Doc Vaupel and Lana Theis won their open seats for State Rep.

All nine County Commissioners were re-elected. Don Parker got 60% against Mike Tipton, the loudest critic of the board. That's worth a spiked football on its own as well.

Tom Barrett won a tough state rep district out in Eaton County (which Mark Schauer won)

This is despite the union leadership spending a ton of money on political hit pieces, "member communications" that were expensive hit piece mailings, and annoying phone calls (both sides guilty of those damn calls). That deserves a spiked football as well.

2 comments:

Baffling and mind-boggling come to mind when thinking about the senate race.

Terri Lynn Land may very well be a decent person, but politics ain't beanbag. Especially when we're talking about the U.S. Senate. For starters I really don't believe she or her handlers/campaign fully appreciated the difference between a U.S. Senate race and running for secretary of state in Michigan. This was the big leagues and what started out as a winnable race quickly got out of hand.

But that's just the thing. She had a good 5-6 months to pull back and recover and re-calibrate. Peters was stuck in the low-to-mid-40s the whole summer. The undecideds were above 15 percent well into September. No one was flocking to Peters given the national environment-- but where was the alternative?

Hole away for a good two or three weeks and study up on the issues and formulate answers to basic questions you know are coming. Get out in front of the press more and develop a give-and-take style with reporters and a camera presence. Here's an idea: actually announce campaign stops to the press.

Land may be a great person and philanthropist and the only one to step up and run, but for whatever reason she couldn't/wouldn't' do these things and ran a flat out awful and embarrassing campaign. She doesn't deserve to be on a statewide ballot again. Unfortunately her consultants will all too easily find gainful employment.